AUS team wins regional Imagine Cup

A team from the American University of Sharjah has won the Gulf finals of this year's Imagine Cup.

The cup competition is organized by Microsoft to find talented and innovative new student talent in fields such as application development, design and technology.

The winning team competed against five other finalists from around the Gulf region, which were chosen from over 1,330 student registrations from thirty universities. Two students from the winning team, Ammar Sawas and Ahmed Wasfy, will now go on to the Imagine Cup finals in Paris in July, where they will compete for $180,000 in prizes.

The AUS team presented a project to automatically track city pollution levels, using database and the Microsoft Virtual Earth virtual map.

Dr Fadi Aloul, AUS professor said: "I am very proud of our students. They have demonstrated that their talent and passion for technology can produce solutions that can make a difference to the world." This year's competition was supported by the Information Technology Authority (ITA), Oman, eGovernment Bahrain, Kuwait University and Dubai Municipality, and was focused on the theme of using technology solutions to create a sustainable environment.

Vimal Sethi, director, Developer & Platform Evangelism Group, Microsoft Gulf commented: "These projects demonstrate the power of software to address real-world problems and I'm so impressed by the high levels of technical innovation that these students achieved in their work. This year's Imagine Cup participants all share a commitment to improving the environment and in turn people's lives which is very inspiring. They represent the next generation of business and technology leaders and their creativity and passion are reasons for us all to be optimistic about the future."